Commentaries and critiques on the visual and performing arts in the greater Canton, Ohio area

Monday, November 5, 2012

Reaping a Grizzly Harvest

Reaping a Grizzly Harvest

By Tom Wachunas

Unless you’ve been
holed-up in a cave somewhere for the last 30 years or so, the systematic
disintegration of the nuclear American Family (and to a large extent the
deconstruction of The American Dream) should come as no surprise. Like the
weather these days, everyone talks about it, but no one seems to be really doing anything about it beyond
symptom relief.

Is there a FEMA equivalent that can provide a
permanent, viable remedy? Are the disasters of “climate change” merely
meteorological in nature, or is the true perfect storm of our age our utter
spiritual poverty?Religion too often
offers impotent platitudes, and even our most revered art and artists can do
little more than reflect upon the tragic dilemmas of our time. Seeing this kind
of content presented in the context of live theatre is often tantamount to
helplessly watching a house – and its occupants - on fire.

One of the most
revered (if not arguably problematic) artists in the world of postmodernist
theatre is playwright Sam Shepard. His 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child is a classically macabre
tale of a Midwestern farm family horribly fractured by the “secret” implied in the play’s title. Along with a remarkably impressive cast
comprised of both students and accomplished stage veterans, director Brian
Newberg has brought the story to compelling life in the current production by
the Kent State University at Stark Theatre Department.

Consistent with
the overall complexion of this play, Jim Viront plays the grizzled,
cantankerous patriarch, Dodge, with chillingly surreal urgency. Perpetually
fidgeting with his blanket, he’s a cowering couch potato gone rotten, popping
pills and sneaking gulps from his hidden
whiskey pint. A tired and failed farmer, between his awful fits of smokers’
hacking, he spews complaints and observations with a creepy, exaggerated drawl
as if to shut out the incessant chatter from his delusional, motor-mouthed
wife, Halie.

To that role,
Jacki Dietz brings an equally bizarre edginess. Locked in her world of
idolizing Ansel, a son who died long ago under suspicious circumstances, she
lives precariously between guilt and denial of the oedipal secret buried behind
the house. Maybe as a superficial plea for redemption, she lined her bedroom
walls with crucifixes, yet she makes no secret of her philandering ways (more
fuel for her husband’s meandering rants) with the local minister, Father Dewis.
Played by John-Michael Roberts, he appears only briefly, though effectively
leaving the impression that true atonement is neither on his nor this family’s
to-do list. So much for spiritual catharsis.

The dark past has
exacted an enormous toll from son Tilden. In that role, David Sponhour delivers
an agonizingly poignant portrait of the mental and emotional damage that has
seemingly dis-connected him from everyone but the carcass buried out back. It’s a gruesome fertilizer, perhaps, that’s
made the neglected land bear the produce he presents to his parents with
robotic solemnity.

Another son,
Bradley, was the victim of a chainsaw accident that left him an amputee. He’s
an inveterate bully who brutally shaves his father’s head at one point – a grand
symbol of emasculation.Chris McDaniel
is generally scary in the role, though at times his facial contortions come off
more like a pouting child trying too hard to look the part. Still, one of the
play’s more darkly satisfying moments comes when he’s forced to crawl, eerily
slug-like, out of the house to retrieve his prosthetic leg. The only thing
missing in the scene is the slime trail.

After a six-year absence from the family farm,
grandson Vince returns with girlfriend Shelley in tow. But no one – not even
his father, Tilden - seems to recognize
or remember him.As Vince, Anthony
Antoniades is something of a breath of fresh air even as he genuinely struggles
to reconcile the murky past with the equally murky present. In her role of
Shelley, vivacious Sarah Peters walks a fascinating line between rejection and
acceptance, between mortification and optimism. It’s her youthful persistence
that ultimately forces a terrible confession.

If there’s
something resembling healing light or hope here, it might be in the suggestion
that Vince is a dutiful son come to take over the farm – the proverbial
prodigal reclaiming his inheritance, however corrupted it may be. Yet in so
doing, there’s no promise that his labors will yield anything but bitter fruits.

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About Me

Visual artist, journalist and teacher Tom Wachunas received his BFA (1973) and MFA (1975) degrees from The Ohio State University. From 1977 through 1991 he resided in New York City, where he painted and exhibited extensively and curated shows for “alternative” galleries. During much of that time he was the assistant artistic director of the Diane Jacobowitz Dance Theatre, designing sets and composing sound scores. He has been an accomplished arts journalist since 1986, writing hundreds of reviews and features on the visual and performing arts for numerous regional and international publications. Locally, since 2001, he has had one-man shows at Millworks Gallery (Akron), the Canton Museum of Art, Kent State University Stark, Malone University, and Second April Galerie in downtown Canton. He is a regular exhibitor in many area group shows. Currently he is the curator for Gallery 6000 on the Kent Stark campus, where he is also an adjunct instructor teaching Art as a World Phenomenon.